


The Possibility in Finality

by Verdant_Mercury



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 19:50:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13465338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verdant_Mercury/pseuds/Verdant_Mercury
Summary: The words are the end in one of it's truest forms but the possibilities are endless. Some, are driven into deep depressions. The hushed whispers of a fleeting meeting or a cruel end are written in jagged scrawl. By most standards, Jon is lucky. His words are simple, and few.Jon, look are you?((Soul Mate AU where the last words spoken are written on your skin.))





	The Possibility in Finality

When Jon is young, he doesn’t really care about the words written on his left forearm. They are annoying but he was just mildly curious about the whole thing at best. It's more of an annoyance when he is forced to wear something to always cover it up. It isn’t proper, to have them on display unless it is simply unavoidable or with family. That is what his grandmother said as she gave him an armband for the first time.

After he started to live with her, their importance change. He remembered his mother, through photos and the few memories he still carried. Her face was a simple blur in his mind’s eye, but he remembered when he first was given the words on his arm.

Jon is young, very young so even his memory failed him when he later tried to recall the details. He remembered a scent, floral and soft arms. A sigh, a sound of relief as larger soft hands traced along the words. He is in school when he is properly introduced to why they are so important. When he asked his grandmother, she would simply shoo him away with more strain around her eyes than usual. It is there he is given the reason; soul mate.

All children were gifted them said a teacher with too much honey in her voice. _A gift_ , she reassured more than once. They could be partners or friends, but they are for you and you alone. His own words feel plain, and some children look troubled, young eyes too nervous for their age. You wouldn’t know until the end, and her smile stretched too wide. You would be able to know it was them. She called it a gift.

Jon did not yet grasp the concept of an end, not until he had been given into the care of his grandmother. It was the sigh of a mother no longer there that reminded him. Jon is lucky. His skin is not branded with jagged bits of script, nor was it the breathless whisper of a fleeting moment.

_Jon, look are you?_

He focused on the first part when he was young, mind whirling as he stared down at the words. They look like they were written fast, squished together but the words are still legible. It’s a question but it’s incomplete, the end was missing. Even young as he is, he tried not to let the open end to it bother him too much. It's the fact he won't know the question, and the fact he won't be able to answer that bothers him.

It his name, so they know him. They call him Jon and not Jonathan. It’s not like how his teacher’s call him Jonathan, or his grandmother when the police bring him back to her home those few times they are necessary. It’s just Jon. He is told to look and to see. He does his best. He watched as other children grew older, as some did not come to school and then returned with a new piece of fabric over some part of their body. He is pleased. Secretly, _privately pleased_ because he has been doing exactly what his ‘mate’ wanted from him.

Jon found more than one reason to wander until he was brought home by the police once again. He was heedless to the stress he caused his grandmother, his guardian. He wondered if they would like him. He doesn’t continue the thought as he got older. There are the words on his arm and the sheer curiosity of the world around him. But, for now, he is young. There is familiarity in those words few words, there is _Jon_.

* * *

Jon ended up finding many things when he was young. He found he liked some of the books his grandmother gets him. He knew they weren’t exactly the best, some of the covers were worn and some of the pages hold a slightly yellow hue that spoke of age. He liked only a few but grew bored with the different writer’s so quickly. The steady stream of books kept him inside, from his wandering and subsequent dragging back by his grandmother.

What Jon found isn’t what he wanted to find. He couldn’t imagine such a thing.

Jon found Mr. Spider.

It’s a book for those younger than him. That is what he thought as his fingers brushed over the cover that felt so familiar whenever his grandmother grabbed books that were for children younger than him. There’s an air to it, to the drawing on the back cover. He doesn’t have the words for it yet but he would in time. Violence. Malice. Something a child should not have, and yet there he was. Jon liked books that felt different but this was not one of them. He hated with a ferocity that would surprise him for a long, long time afterward. It did not stop him.

Jon read the book.

The words on his arm felt like they were injured, somehow. They hurt underneath the plain brown armband and it tasted like a lie. He doesn't know how a lie would taste like anything but there it is, a bitter one nonetheless. No one has said his words and Jon cannot even remember if he saw anything other than that horrible book. He cannot tell if he had said anything as he left his house, but then again he couldn’t even recall walking. The book had taken every bit of focus he had. He wanted to put the book down. He cannot. His eye grew wide and wider with every page turned. Mr. Spider got closer and closer, with the paper rustling slightly as he turns the page, again, and again.

Jon stood in the park, his legs shook. He doesn’t want them to move, and the fact that he had, did not even register until he is in the dirt.

His bully was there, and the book is shoved out of his hands. Despite how it felt later, it doesn’t go fast. It isn’t in a hurry when the bully picked up the book. He cannot even recall his name, no matter how much he thought. He watched, dazed but eyes drawn to that monochrome cover and wondered if that’s how he had looked. Why no one had stopped an eight year old who looked so stricken was something that bothered him later.

No one but Jon followed as he trailed behind the bully. It was an itch, and despite the fear that wracked his being, he wanted the book back. There’s no crying but there is almost a scream, barely there but something that will remain in Jon’s mind for years later. Then, it’s just a door that Jon can never find again and a trail of missing posters.

The world expanded, quickly and dizzyingly so. It was remarkable and oh so _terrible_. His mind cannot help but be stricken with the weight of the realization. He looked, and found something a child’s mind was not prepared for, could not be. He found it difficult to stop looking, and he wandered with a different purpose. He looked for the door, and for the book again. He tried to tell himself he was not scared of finding either.

There were things he just didn’t know of, things that the library could carry and books do not hold any of the same appeal that they once had held. Mr. Spider wanted a guest and got one in the end. Chance was the only thing that saved him from the fate of guest. Chance, and a bully who vanished in Jon’s place.

Jon does not read any of the books his grandmother bought him after that. He doesn’t even touch them until he remembered the words before the story. It’s only when he understood the plague, the statement.

_From the library of Jurgen Leitner._

Jon’s soul mark is no longer the most important phrase.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to yell at me @possbily-not-a-ghost on tumblr.


End file.
